List your favourite underrated cartridges

BlackRam

CGN frequent flyer
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Location
Northeastern BC
Mine are (JMO):
250 Savage - prefer it over the 243/6mm's, may not be as fast, yet still effective
6.5x55 Swedish Mauser - once written as "the perfect whitetail cartridge" and "the recoil of the 257 Roberts, as effective as the 270 Winchester, and more accurate than either" - summed it up niclely! and has been the cartridge which I have more experience handloading and shooting than any other over the past 30 years - and like the 280 Rem, is even better when chambered in newer rifles and loaded to higher safe pressures
280 Remington - found it to be more versatile than the 270 and more interesting than the '06; my favourite cartridge! Again, one that improves when loaded to higher
safe pressures
338 Federal - more punch than the 308, and more interesting
358 Winchester - mild mannered and very effective! in the pre-81 BLR has been my favourite back up for guiding, archery hunting and atv/horseback hunting. Would love to get a Savage Model 99 in one too.
 
.270 Winchester and .243 Winchester.

The former in particular is popularly discounted by the “in” crowd / 6.5 people, however the .270 remains a modest recoiling, flat shooting game hammer that by its very recipe (light bullets) has resisted the market push to heavy monos. It’s retained it’s bang flop aspects better than most as a result, and is available in every good rifle, and on every hardware store shelf.

The .243 is just a 75% scale .270, and is to the .308 what the .270 is to the .30-06. Another sweet shooting, quick, readily available and disproportionately effective round that was doing the mild but flat shooting thing long before the fancy options came along.

Getting away from readily available, the .250 Savage as the OP mentions, the 257 Roberts, and .257 Weatherby are all inordinately effective and light recoiling. The .30-06 is considered old hat but yet arguably the best rounded non dangerous game round in existence.
 
270 win, been using it for nearly 30 years and it has amounted for more bang flops than all my others combined. Easy recoiling, fast n flat, not as "cool" as some of the new cartridges but for an almost 100yr old round it still manages to keep up
 
.303 Brit... people say it is old and inaccurate.
.358 Win... people say it has too small a case for .35 cal.
.45/70... people say it is no good beyond 100 yards.

I don't feel the 6.5X55, 7X57 and 9.3X62 are "underrated," but rather they are widely respected, at least in the circles I travel in.
 
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